


myth-woven and elf-patterned

by TolkienGirl



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Balrogs, F/M, Fall of Gondolin, Gandalf's history is present here, Gen, Glamdring, Gondolin, Happy Birthday Tolkien, Multiple Timelines, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Orcrist - Freeform, Post-Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Sword Ownership Theories, a quick Elrond line is included (from AUJ) but uncredited, lots of parallels, my first canon fic in...forever, title from Mythopoeia by JRRT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22110052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Fate is fate--especially when it comes to Elvish swords.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins & Gandalf | Mithrandir, Elenwë/Turgon of Gondolin, Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë & Turgon of Gondolin, Fingon | Findekáno & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingon | Findekáno & Turgon of Gondolin, Fíli & Kíli & Thorin Oakenshield, Gandalf | Mithrandir & Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	myth-woven and elf-patterned

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a latecomer to Silm canon. I'm doing my best. There is a canon basis (in the HoME and elsewhere) that Glamdring belonged to Turgon, and Orcrist might well have gone with him to the Nirn, and since he went to join Fingon--I'm filling in the gaps.
> 
> I know that canonically Fingon probably never went to Gondolin?? but I want this

_There is (for him) both the heat of breath and the sighs of death on the ice. He slew only one of his kindred on the sands—and that one, to save his brother, who fought with his eyes fixed on a friend unworthy of such trust. To Beleriand, he came without joy or hope. To Gondolin, he came with strength and purpose._

_To the west, he came ten thousand strong._

I am the reason that our people live.

_The Wise do not wish for this to be their lot._

(Before:)

Turgon was not Finwë, though some said he bore the closest resemblance to him of any living. He did not feel, particularly, the lifeblood of his dead grandfather in his veins. He had the high brow, the raven hair so thick it was almost coarse, but he did not have Finwë’s warmth.

“Your swordsmiths would make Curufin itch with envy,” Fingon observed, turning the blade in his hand. Something about the sight of Fingon’s hands made Turgon want to take them in his own.

Fingolfin had been dead seven years. The new high king was slighter than Finwë, shorter than Fingolfin, and wore the same bright raiment he always had.

Turgon wondered how Fingon could look, yet, so _young._

“ _Orcrist_ is the name the smith gave it.”

Fingon’s straight brows knitted together in mock affront. “Ah! So I cannot name it myself!”

“Who said it was yours?”

Fingon smiled. Frank, wide-open. Fingon did not laugh, since the death of their father, but he still smiled. Turgon’s chest filled halfway with warmth. “I am more often the receiver of gifts,” he said. “Did Maedhros not tell you?”

As if Turgon spoke to any of their cousins!

He took the sword’s fellow in his hand instead of answering the question. “This one they called _Glamdring_ ,” he said. “You are right, Fingon. Orcrist is for you.”

“You are good to me,” Fingon said, as if an elder brother ought to say that to a younger, or a high king to one of lesser stead. “Thank you. These are of uncommon beauty.”

Turgon said, “We make beauty even of war.”

(After:)

The Fëanorians came never to the Hidden City, but now even Turgon himself was cautious in returning there. Even if he reached it safely, it seemed a greater crime to venture on plodding feet, to walk halls that Aredhel’s spirit would mourn in anew, knowing, as her memory must, that Turgon was now alone.

The messenger came by night, to the circled encampment. The soldiers there rested in shifts, a thousand spears out at any hour. The strange elf had an orc arrow embedded in his armor; though he bore Maglor’s crest, he wore the livery of Himring.

Turgon had not seen his cousins on the battlefield until all was over. He had not really seen them then. Nothing had mattered, _then_ , under a blood-split sky.

“How make you here, in such peril?” he demanded. His guards had their bows trained at the ready. The messenger licked at his blood-speckled lips and dropped to one knee.

Red was his blood; red were all their eyes. Not a one had spent a single day or a night, since, without weeping.

“Lord Maglor sent me after you.”

“So I see.”

The arrow scraped against a heaving shoulder-plate. Laboring, the elf said,

“He…he asked…”

“We had no body to bury,” Turgon snapped. His voice did not sound like his own; his heart did not beat like his own. Both were splintered through by the far-off blast of breaking ice. “Think you we have some token to send for _their_ comfort?”

The Helcaraxë was an age ago, and grief had found him _there_.

Maglor’s messenger shifted from one knee to the other. He had no scars on his fair Noldor face, despite the traces of blood. Weariness hung about him like a cloak, and his wounds festered, for all that they were fresh. That was the battle-loss; it lapped the Eldar to their bones.

Turgon did not pity him.

“King Turgon,” the messenger said. Not _high_ king. An acknowledgement but not an obeisance—yet, Turgon was numb to any insult, now. “Majesty. I—my lord Maglor did not ask for—only, what news shall I bring him in return?”

“ _They_ and you were there. _They_ need know naught else.” Turgon’s hands closed around the arms of his chair. That chair was carried forth by his royal guard when all of Gondolin marched out in secret; the wood was light, enchanted. The workmanship tooled in shapely vines and branches had been something his brother marveled at. But then, _he_ had always likened the hidden city’s heart to the soft, benevolent shadows beneath the Holy Trees.

_Much could grow here, and flourish_ , Fingon had mused, on one of his few visits, the candlelight catching on the gold in his hair.

“My lord Maglor sent his condolences.” The messenger was proud, despite his pain, despite the weapons drawn on him, and he was regaining his wits. “As I meant to say, king, he asked only for what you knew.”

“News, then. For _Maedhros_?”

The name tasted ugly. Uglier than Eöl, uglier than Fëanor, uglier than Moringotto itself.

Uglier than any other, for it was the only name that could have drawn Fingon out.

“Nay. He—my lord _Maglor_ asked after kin.”

“Then he may tell that to—”

_A thousand bodies, crimsoning distant sands, charring delicate barks, withering the flesh of Elenw_ ë _in such frost as no fire could cure—_

_Fingon, Fingon, Fingon, trodden down._

Turgon in Gondolin could grow a thousand hopes, yet nothing would change him: he had his dead father’s clear vision of the too-late past.

(He had every memory of his brother, sketched out in gold and frank smiles.)

“—to a gory banner, and his many brothers,” Turgon finished bitterly. “Surely they will not _all_ be driven mad by it.”

_The swords are burnished, which seems sacrilegious. He gazes on them unmoving, his hands clenched as if they are still stiff with gauntlets._

_“Beg pardon, my lord—” the smith is saying, as if Turgon can hear him. As if Turgon will look at him, when his eyes are flooded with tears. “It did not seem right, to leave the—the high king’s sword uncleaned.”_

_There is no dent in the blade._

Glamdring. Orcrist.

We make beauty even of war.

_(But Fingon had not answered that.)_

(After:)

Turgon could have seen the swords buried, with the last of those he counted as his first kin.

He kept them instead.

Time took Fingon’s banner, and Gondolin with its king beneath it—

But it left the swords.

(Beyond:)

_This is Orcrist, the Goblin Cleaver, a famous blade. Made by the High Elves of the West, my kin. May it serve you well. And this is Glamdring, the Foe-Hammer, sword of the King of Gondolin._

“I mislike the touch of them,” Thorin said, losing no chance for bitterness whenever he had not also need—but Bilbo, wide-eyed and curious, leaned so far forward that Gandalf thought he might tilt head over hairy heels.

“What is Gondolin?” asked Bilbo, mangling the pronunciation dreadfully, as was to be expected.

Gandalf shook himself; the sight of the blades in moonlight had briefly made him Olórin again. “It was an ancient Elvish city,” he said. “And the king there…well it is a long story, and I myself know not the whole of it, but a number of the eldest Elves were close kin to the greatest smith of their kind.”

“What was _his_ name?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Gandalf tapped a finger against Glamdring’s pommel. “The king of Gondolin, at any rate, was named Turgon. These swords outlived him; swords often do. Spoils of war even after war has spoiled all, you know. Turgon was crushed under the tower of his hidden city—or so I’ve heard—but the swords had gone on ahead of him.”

“Thieved even then?”

Thorin was pretending not to listen, but he turned his head a little at Fíli’s question.

“No—more likely taken up by whoever was nearest it. Orcrist was not Turgon’s sword.” His memory was rolling back, laden as the sea, and he puffed at his pipe to stem it. “Glamdring has a different history, but Orcrist was taken up by Ecthelion. You don’t know his name, though many in the farther reaches of this land still do—not for proper reasons, of course. Strangely enough…” The sea was rising again. His voice trailed off.

“What?” That was Bilbo again, and Fíli and Kíli both.

Gandalf sighed. He could tell half a tale; it would not pain him. “Strangely enough, it was Ecthelion who slew the same enemy that laid waste to Orcrist’s original owner. Many years apart, but fate is fate.”

Thorin’s eyes bored into him.

“Ecthelion must have been brave,” murmured Kíli, with only a furtive glance at his uncle. Gandalf was fast learning that Kili was the bolder of the two young dwarves. But then, he was a younger brother. They hadn’t the burdens of heirs—until they did.

“Quite brave,” Gandalf said. “At least as the tales go. The creature he faced is not one I will name, nor one I would wish to meet in a place either dark or light.”

“Of course,” he added, after a moment, “Ecthelion died. Everyone did, in those days.”

Thorin stalked to the other side of the fire.

_Rest, oh proud king—in a secret place beneath a mountain. If it were any other end, your pride would be demanded of you._

_Yet, you died with it…perhaps by letting go._

Gandalf sees that Orcrist is laid on Thorin’s breast. No one protests the act: not his nephews (who are dead beside him), and not the elf-king who knew not the blade’s making.

Some things are old enough to be buried, after all.

(Long ago:)

Olorin loved to watch them laugh: the young immortals, birthed in high houses and by low-running rivers, growing and rising in plentitude. He did not see the future; few did, or few wished to. The last he saw of Findekáno, Fingolfin’s son, he was walking in the light of the Trees.

Olorin smiled upon him; upon the small brother who walked by his side. They did not see him; he was walking cloaked.

_The Wise do not wish for this to be their lot._


End file.
